UFC 136 was headlined by two championship matches but it was a post match promo that will be most remembered. Chael Sonnen was the man who stole the headlines with his post fight challenge, turning the UFC upside down with his WWE style challenge to Anderson Silva.

Chael Sonnen returned after a fourteen month layoff and defeated Brian Stann in the second round with an arm-triangle. Sonnen just smothered Stann with ground and pound for a round and a half before finally ending Stann’s misery. As impressive as Sonnen was during the fight, it was what Sonnen said after the fight that is making headlines.

“Anderson Silva, you absolutely suck. Super Bowl, weekend, the biggest weekend but we’re upping the stakes. I beat you, you leave the division. You beat me, I will leave the UFC forever.”

Sonnen upped the stakes and said that he would leave the UFC if he lost and asked that Anderson leave the middleweight division if the champion lost. This challenge has had the world of MMA buzzing the entire night. Check out more on this in a full blog I wrote earlier on the challenge and fight.

Once the dust settled it was Frankie Edgar and Gray Maynard that would close out the show with an exciting main event. Edgar and Maynard picked up right where they left off at UFC 125 with round eight! Maynard connected early with an uppercut and was all over Edgar. It was just like their last fight with Edgar just absorbing a ton of punishment yet getting out of the round. It appeared that Maynard broke Edgar’s nose with the shot. Somehow Edgar escaped as did Maynard’s chances at becoming UFC lightweight champion.

Edgar was able to rebound in the following round and seemed to confuse Maynard for the remainder of the fight. Maynard appeared to be looking for the knockout punch while Edgar just got in and out with strikes and kept on moving. Maynard never appeared in any real danger in the second round but Edgar certainly edged him out.

The next two rounds saw more of the same. It just appeared to me that Maynard was to one dimensional here just looking for another punch rather than mixing it up on the ground. In the fourth round the two had a scramble for a takedown and Edgar just rocked Maynard hard with an uppercut. Edgar swarmed with strikes and the fight was over at 3:54 of the fourth round.

Frankie Edgar is just indestructible. Once again, he survives a brutal onslaught of strikes and comes back seemingly from the dead to finish and win this particular fight. It would appear that Strikeforce lightweight champion Gilbert Melendez will be Edgar’s next challenger. There were rumors that Melendez would step inside of the cage following the fight and challenge the winner but that never happened.

In the co-headliner, Jose Aldo successfully defended the UFC featherweight title against Kenny Florian. I wouldn’t call it a bad fight but it certainly wasn’t a great fight. They went the distance with Florian surprising Aldo early but Aldo itching it out for the remaining rounds. Florian tried closing the distance throughout the fight but Aldo quickly stifled those attempts.

I have to say that while Aldo is undefeated since coming to the UFC, he is hardly the fighter that he was in the WEC. Big things were expected out of Aldo when he came over and so far he has been fairly underwhelming. The talent is definitely there but something is not clicking. In his last eight WEC fights, only one went the distance. In the UFC, both fights have gone the distance and he was almost badly by Mark Hominick in the final round at UFC 129. A win is a win, but this is hardly the dominating fighter he was in the WEC.

Eric is the owner and editor-in-chief of the Camel Clutch Blog. Eric has worked in the pro wrestling industry since 1995 as a ring announcer in ECW and a commentator/host on television, PPV, and home video. Eric also hosted Pro Wrestling Radio on terrestrial radio from 1998-2009. Check out some of Eric's work on his IMDB bio and Wikipedia. Eric has an MBA from Temple University's Fox School of Business.

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